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September 8, 2003

Soros Starts Loan and Credit Business

NEW YORK (HedgeWorld.com)--Soros Fund Management plans to pursue a variety of lending and credit opportunities with a new affiliate headed by a former Goldman Sachs executive vice president.

Steven Mnuchin will join as chief executive of the new venture, which is called SFM Capital Management. Soros President and Chief Executive Mark Schwartz also came from Goldman Sachs and in the past year has been recruiting senior people who had been at the bank Previous HedgeWorld Story.

"We believe that this is a significant opportunity to build a major business that will focus on various credit opportunities in the corporate, consumer, and real estate sectors," Mr. Schwartz added.

Mr. Mnuchin is to work closely with the preexisting private equity, credit and corporate groups in the US$11.5 billion hedge fund firm. He also will sit on its management committee.

At Goldman Sachs, where he worked for 17 years, he served as chief information officer, responsible for the bank's technology division, including global e-commerce and technology strategy. Before that he was a member of Goldman Sachs' fixed-income, currency and commodity division, where he oversaw mortgages, principal finance, U.S. government bonds, money markets and municipal bonds.

Mr. Mnuchin retired from Goldman at the end of 2002 and became vice chairman of ESL Investments Inc., Greenwich, Conn., a large shareholder in Kmart Holding Inc. Mr. Mnuchin is also a member of the Kmart board and chairman of that company's corporate governance committee. ESL and Third Avenue Management LLC, New York, where involved Kmart's reorganization plan and reemergence from Chapter 11 protection .